The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

"Specialized and a touch rarified but useful for policy workers in helping shape dollars-and-cents arguments about the environment and global climate."

"Most everything we know tells us climate change is bad. Most everything we don't know tells us it's probably much worse." So observe Environmental Defense Fund economist Wagner (But Will the Planet Notice?: How Smart Economics Can Save the World, 2011, etc.) and Weitzman (Economics/Harvard Univ.; Income, Wealth, and the Maximum Principle, 2003, etc.) in this dismal-science look at a very dismal subject indeed.Read full book review >

"Somewhat arid, as medical policy works tend to be, but of considerable use to readers with an interest in public health issues."

Adaption of a lecture series at the Collège de France by Piot (No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses, 2012, etc.), the founding executive director of the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS.Read full book review >

"Uninterested in sending men into space (China is the only nation with an ongoing manned program), Congress remains willing to finance unmanned projects with strictly scientific objectives. These have yielded rich rewards, and Bell delivers an exuberant account of one of the most rewarding."

An expensive, taxpayer-financed project designed by committee and employing thousands of government workers turned out beautifully. This was the first of many miracles of the Voyager mission, two space probes that conducted one of the greatest scientific explorations of the 20th century.
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Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Scheer (Communication and Journalism/Univ. of Southern California; The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street, 2010, etc.) examines how online convenience has supplanted bedrock American values of personal freedom and the right to privacy.Read full book review >

Konner (Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology/Emory Univ.; The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind, 2010, etc.) examines why he believes women are superior to men "in most ways that will matter in the future."Read full book review >

"For Mimi Baird, the book serves as closure; for general readers, it's a sobering account of how little we knew and how much we still have to learn about mental illness—especially how not to treat it."

The author was 6 in 1944 when her father, Perry Baird, was remanded to Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts, diagnosed with manic-depressive psychosis and disappearing from her life. Here, she reconstructs the past in a moving, melancholy memoir.
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"Although they often beat dead or nonexistent horses, these ingenious cerebral tidbits will stimulate, provoke and confuse (in a good way) intelligent readers."

New science has a difficult time. As physicist Max Planck said long ago, a good idea does not automatically replace a bad one; "opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
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A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over—and see everything anew. “Zevin writes characters who grow and prosper,” our reviewer writes, “in a narrative that is sometimes sentimental, sometimes funny, sometimes true to life and always entertaining.”
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FEATURED NONFICTION AUTHOR

For readers who love creative nonfiction (or literary journalism or whatever designation suits you), if you haven’t read any work by Michael Paterniti, take note. The longtime GQ and New York Times Magazine contributor and author returns today with a collection of essays, Love and Other Ways of Dying, which ...

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